Amid Declining Media Freedom, RFE/RL Presses Ahead

May 2, 2014

(WASHINGTON – May 2, 2014) Despite new lows in the free exchange of information and ideas, RFE/RL journalists are reporting the news in some of the world’s most hostile environments.

“Our reporters do this work because they believe in it, not only as a basic human right but as a fundamental condition of human dignity, functional societies and peace,” said Nenad Pejic, RFE/RL’s Editor-in-Chief, in advance of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. “What happens without media freedom is tyranny, and this we cannot accept.”

War and insurgency have also put RFE/RL journalists in extreme danger in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, countries denounced for their treatment of journalists in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2014 Impunity Index. Most tragically, Mohammed Bdaiwi Owaid al-Shammari, Baghdad bureau chief for Radio Free Iraq, was shot and killed at a checkpoint near his office on March 22 in an incident that RFE/RL company managers called tragic, senseless, and shocking.

As a World Press Freedom Day tribute to the work of its journalists, RFE/RL honors just a few of its colleagues whose reporting is a daily testament to the power of free speech and free media.

Farshid Manafi, Radio Farda: “Pas Farda” (The Day After Tomorrow), Manafi’s satire show for RFE/RL’s Persian language service, spoofs the status quo in Iran, where 35 years after the Islamic Revolution, dissenting voices are endangered.

Read more about RFE/RL’s reporters at our Journalists In Trouble and Watchdog blogs, as well as Lady Liberty, dedicated to highlighting the contributions of women journalists from RFE/RL as well as other media in our broadcast region.

About RFE/RLRFE/RL is a private, independent international news organization whose programs — radio, Internet, television, and mobile — reach influential audiences in 21 countries, including Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is funded by the U.S. Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).